Cancer prevention & exerciseWhy exercise effects cancer riskHow to exercise for cancer preventionThe link between cancer prevention & exercise follows. Included are the benefits of exercise for breast, prostate & colon cancer and other cancers.
Our umbrella page on cancer & exercise Current cancer patients & exercise Uterine, ovarian, endometrial & lung cancer and exercise Exercise & prostate cancer
In the mid 1990s health advocacy groups were reporting the effects of exercise on cancer as being positive. In addition to exercise’s effects on cancer, other factors such as diet & smoking were cited as major factors in cancer risk. Initial cancer research Observers long ago noticed a connection between cancer prevention & exercise. Dr. Thomas Cherry studied the relationship between exercise and cancer in the 1920‘s. He found that people engaging in heavy labor had lower cancer rates than those working in sedentary jobs. In the 1940s Australian researchers found that primitive tribes that had to work hard to secure food had lower cancer rates than persons in industrialized societies. However, there were problems in concluding that exercise prevented cancer. Many studies were not well controlled or had too few participants. Also, there were not enough studies to draw blanket conclusions. More recent research on exercise & cancer Recently long term studies have been examined for information on the connection between cancer & exercise. The findings on the exercise - cancer connection are very promising especially for certain types of cancers & certain levels of exercise. For example, research shows that cancer prevention exercise is especially helpful when it comes to colon, breast & prostate cancers. For breast cancer, the benefits of exercise has been found to be a 10 - 70% reduction in cancer risk, with an average reduction of 30 - 40%. So, the effects of exercise on breast cancer formation are very impressive. Why does exercise reduce breast cancer risk? The effects of exercise stem from exercise’s ability to suppress hormones in mature women or delay the menarche for girls. Both reduce the risk of breast cancer. These exercise benefits hold true for pre & post menopausal women. The relationship between colon cancer prevention & exercise is also strong. Generally studies show that with higher levels of physical activity & exercise, colon cancer risk drops. The findings linked both leisure time exercise and occupational physical activity. The reasons for exercise effects on lowering colon cancer risk include physical activity’s speeding up intestinal transit time of wastes. The wastes are thought to host cancer causing materials. Ridding the body of these wastes as soon as possible rids the body of cancerous materials as soon as possible. Apart from speeding elimination (colon cancer), exercise also has a role in reducing insulin sensitivity, decreasing body fat & boosting immunity, all thought to contribute to cancer. Prostate cancer has also been shown to be reduced with exercise. There are a few conflicting results here, but the few well designed, large scale studies have generally pointed to the value of prostate cancer prevention exercise. Note that benefits of exercise for prostate cancer were generally found for men over the age of 60. The explanation for the link is that high testosterone levels increase prostate cancer risk. Exercise suppresses testosterone levels thereby protecting exercisers from prostate cancer. Reasons for exercise’s beneficial effects aren’t always clear & different reasons may apply depending on the types of cancers under consideration. Presently, not all research trumpets the positive effects of exercise for all cancers. However, there are good reason to speculate that the variance may be due to the complexities in cancer cause & effect and research study flaws. Certainly, the effects of exercise on two factors that seem to contribute to cancer are fairly clear. Exercise improves immunity, & a strong immune system is believed to reduce the risk of cancer. Exercise also relieves stress & high stress levels have often been associated with increased cancer risk. The above reasons for exercise’s preventive effects on cancer formation may be related to each other in fairly complex ways. But one thing seems clear, for whatever reason, exercise plays an important role in helping us prevent many types of cancer. Best cancer prevention exercise strategy
The best advice for now would be to engage in moderate exercise for cancer prevention, treatment and post-treatment. Exercise on most days for between 20 - 50 minutes. Also, it would be best to include strength training, flexibility exercises & holistic programs such as Pilates or yoga to round out your exercise program. Finally, the value of exercise on cancer does not increase because exercise becomes strenuous. In fact, over-exercising may actually increase stress & depress immunity putting you at greater risk for cancer. Don’t burn yourself out! See our pages on specific topics regarding exercise especially strength, flexibility, aerobics, Pilates & yoga by going to the navigation bar on page left. For more helpful information visit our umbrella page on
cancer and exercise
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